This NAS offers impressive hardware at a good price, the ReadyNAS Duo v2 software and documentation fall short of the excellence we've come to expect from Netgear.

Netgear's ReadyNAS Duo v2 (diskless $199, 1TB single drive $269, 1TB 2 drives $299) is a scaled-down version of its prosumer-class NAS offering, the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 6 an excellent NAS for the small business. While the ReadyNAS Duo v2 offers excellent Read/Write speed with a Marvell Kirkwood 6282 1.6 GHz processor, the updated management interface needs work. In fact, several features, such as backing up shared Windows folders and setting up power off/on schedules and a woeful lack of good documentation could use some improvement—surprising lapses from Netgear, and a shame given the product's excellent hardware.

SpecsThe ReadyNAS Duo, is a small, very quiet NAS with two drive bays for hot-swappable SATA drives. Maximum drive capacity is 3TB, which topped by the ReadyNAS Duo's close competitor, the D-Link ShareCenter 2-Bay Network Storage (DNS-325) which caps capacity at 4TB. However, the ReadyNAS Duo can support up to 6TB running in RAID 0 configuration--but you lose data redundancy.

Netgear's ReadyNAS Duo ships with 256 MB PC2700 DDR-SDRAM SO-DIMM. That memory, along with the Marvell Kirkwood processor and embedded 128MB flash memory for the device's OS, makes for one of the best performing NAS devices in the Consumer/SOHO space. The device also features a Gigabit Ethernet port, one USB 2.0 port and two USB 3.0 ports for attaching additional storage, or directly connecting a camera to upload pictures and video.

The ReadyNAS Duo also has the one-touch backup button commonly found now on consumer NAses and supports Windows, Mac and Linux/UNIX clients. Yes, Mac users, this version of ReadyNAS will back up your OS X Lion Time Machine files.

SetupYou set up the ReadyNAS Duo using Netgear's RAIDar utility—the same software used across its line of NAS products. The NAS and the computer used to set it up, must be connected to the same network—typically by wiring both to a router. The ReadyNAS obtains an IP address from DHCP, again, for most home users, through the router. The RAIDar utility, which is on an accompanying CD, scans your network and locates the NAS. When I first initiated RAIDar, the utility detected a newer version of itself from Netgear's site, which it downloaded and installed.

After the upgrade, RAIDar froze on me when I tried to open it. Although setup did not instruct me to, I rebooted my computer. That took care of the freezing.Once RAIDar detects the NAS—and in my case it did so in seconds—another screen opens up, providing such information about the device as MAC and IP addresses. The screen also gives graphical representations of drive activity, power, and the device's temperature. From this screen, users can browse the two default shared folders already setup on the NAS: "Backup" and "Media" or they can click to get into the NAS' management interface to configure.

Interface OverhaulNetgear's NAS interface has been tweaked since I last saw it, in the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra. It seems to be more graphics-heavy. It opens up with animated images representing the network connection status, an image showing the rotation of the device's internal fan, and a thermometer to display the temperature of the device.

I thought loading the interface with graphics made working in the interface a bit slow, but Netgear engineers told me this slowness was most likely due to the background processes that load when the NAS is first booted up. While sifting through the various configuration screens, I noted some images appeared as broken links in IE8. Switching to Firefox alleviated the issues.

Overall, I am not convinced that the interface changes from when we last looked at the ReadyNAS Ultra 6 add any benefit to the user experience. The interface seems…unfinished. For instance, while I was working within it, I received a message that the device had a new firmware update available. I clicked OK to download it, but afterwards I couldn't tell if the firmware was downloading, installing, or had been upgraded. After a few minutes, a message finally flashed, telling me to reboot the NAS to finish the update process, but until then I had no idea what was happening.

In another scenario, I was configuring the ReadyNAS Photos II app which comes pre-installed. This app allows you to share photos and slideshows with users outside a home network. To do this, you have to enable UPnP and port forwarding on your network, which the interface walks you through. After going through this setup process, I received an on-screen message, "Ready to use Web forwarding service, but some issues found." However, there were no details about what those issues were.

These cryptic messages and the lack of follow through on some screens, exemplifies what I mean by a sort of "incompleteness" of the management console. It feels more like beta software than the smooth, polished interface typically found in Netgear's products.

Samara Lynn has nearly twenty years experience in Information Technology; most recently as IT Director at a major New York City healthcare facility. She has a Bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College, several technology certifications, and she was a tech editor for the CRN Test Center.
With an extensive, hands-on background in deploying and managing Microsoft Windows infrastructures and networking, she was included in Black Enterprise's "20 Black Women in Tech You Need to Follow on Twitter," and received the 2013 Small Business Influencer Top 100 Champions...
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